He stood up straight and looked at her squarely. There was hurt in his eyes, but he spoke evenly. “What do you want me to do? Tell me and I’ll do it. Whatever I have to do to prove to you who I am, I’ll do it.”
“Turn the negatives over to Cork,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “And tell Wally Schanno everything that happened.”
He took a deep breath and nodded his agreement. “I suspect that in that bag are things that will tear this county-hell, maybe this state-apart,” he warned her. “But I’ll give the bag to Cork, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“And you’ll believe the things I’ve said? You’ll believe I really love you?”
“I’ll believe you about everything.”
“Then I’ll do it. You’re the most important thing in my life, Jo. I’ll do anything to keep you in it.”
He reached out his hand. She took it.
“Let’s go up to the house,” he suggested. “You can call Cork from there. Tell him to meet us at the Nurmi woman’s place. I’ll give him the bag.”
She held back a moment. “This will mean the end of all your dreams.”
Somehow he managed a faint smile. “No. It just means I’ll never be president.” He kissed her hand gently. “But I’ll always have you.”
46
He had one picture of Molly. Only one. It was a Polaroid he’d taken with her camera in the summer just moments after she stepped onto the shore from a dip in the lake near the sauna. She wore a black one-piece and had a good tan. She was bent a little awkwardly, torn between reaching down for her beach towel and trying to say “Cheese” for the camera. Her red hair clung to her back and shoulders and hung over her face in long, wet strands. She was laughing.
He’d kept the picture in a collection of poems by Robert Frost, hidden from the eyes of anyone who might, in idle curiosity, have stumbled onto it in a drawer. He always slipped it in with the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Cork didn’t know much more about poetry than the next guy, but he understood well how it felt to have miles to go before he slept.
Now he lay on his bunk, one arm pillowing his head, studying the one and only picture he’d allowed himself of Molly. She looked exactly the way he wanted to remember her, full of life, laughing. That was Molly to him. Not the pale blue icedover body with its sightless eyes set on heaven. Molly deserved to be remembered differently. She deserved a lot of things life never offered her, not the least of which was someone who told her often he loved her. Why hadn’t he? Why had he been so afraid? He couldn’t think of anything so important now that it should have kept him from telling Molly how he felt.
And now it was too late. Too late forever.
Sam’s Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus. People died around him, but he was immune. There was no justice. He should have died long ago. Maybe if he had, Molly would still be alive. And Sam Winter Moon and Arnold Stanley, and God only knew who else. He remembered a line he’d heard once, from an ancient text it seemed. “I am become death…” That was him.
The phone rang. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he’d neglected to turn on his answering machine and on the tenth ring he lifted the receiver.
“Cork, it’s Jo.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“I know where the negatives are.”
He sat up, instantly alert. “Where?”
“Meet me at Molly Nurmi’s.” She paused, covered the mouthpiece, and mumbled something faintly to someone else. “In half an hour,” she concluded.
“At Molly’s?”
“Yes.”
“Jo, did you know all along?”
“No.”
“Sandy,” he guessed.
“Meet me, Cork. Let me explain.” She hung up without waiting for him to answer.
Cork walked calmly to the front door. He put on his coat and his stocking cap. He grasped his Winchester and fed in the shells he’d stuffed in his pockets at Parrant’s.
“Mr. Senator,” he said as he worked the lever, feeding the first cartridge into the chamber.
“He’ll be there?” Sandy asked as Jo hung up the kitchen phone.
“He’ll be there.”
“Well,” he said somberly, “let’s get it over with.”
She touched his arm. “It will be good to get clear. Whatever happens, whatever those negatives hold, at least we won’t be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives waiting for the worst to catch up with us.”
“You’re right. As usual.”
They headed downstairs, through the basement recreation room and Sandy’s tool room, to the garage.
“Let’s take the Cherokee,” Sandy suggested.
Jo walked past the BMW.
“Oops. Just a minute,” Sandy said, tapping his forehead as if he’d just remembered something. “I’ll be right back.” He returned to the tool room and came out with a roll of silver duct tape. “Almost forgot.” He laughed as he neared her.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
Sandy lunged for her, catching her completely by surprise. He spun her, threw her against the hood of the Cherokee, grasped her arms, and pinned them behind her. She began to struggle, but it was too late. Her wrists were tightly bound together with the tape.
“You’re hurting me, Sandy.”
“And you don’t think you’re hurting me?” he replied, cold and fierce. “Asking me to give up everything. Christ!” He opened the door of the Cherokee. “Get in,” he ordered her.
Jo backed away. He grabbed her arm, yanked her to the open door, and shoved her in. Roughly he settled her in a sitting position, then knelt and began to tape her ankles. She brought her knees up swiftly, striking him squarely in the nose. He fell back, blood streaming from his nostrils, and he sat on the concrete floor, stunned. Jo tried to free her legs so she could run, but Sandy had managed to get one loop of tape around her ankles and she couldn’t break loose. He touched his nose and carefully studied the blood on his fingertips.
“I deserved that,” he concluded in a tone that sounded quite rational. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at his bloody nose. “Let me ask you something, Jo. If I told you I’d killed the Nurmi woman, could you let it go? Could you live with me and work with me and love me like you have?”
“My God,” Jo said, breathless as the horrific truth uncoiled before her. “You did murder her.”
“In its own way, it was an accident.” He stood up and used the side mirror of the BMW to assess the damage to his nose. “I didn’t go there meaning to kill her. I did what I had to do to protect myself. You see, we’re not just talking about the end of my political career. What’s in that bag could land me in jail for a good long time. The political thing I could live with, I suppose. There are other challenges. But I couldn’t live in prison. You might as well shoot me.”
“Are you going to kill me? And Cork?”
“What would you do if you were me?”
“You said you loved me.”
Sandy leaned against the BMW and crossed his legs casually as if he were posing for an ad layout. “The truth about love is that you can find it around any corner. Love’s easy. Now a shot at the White House, that’s rare.”
“I can’t believe this,” Jo said.
“I’ll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways. That’s me, Jo. I’ve always known that I was destined for great things.” He approached her again. “I’m going to tape your ankles now. If you insist on trying to kick me again, I’ll hit you. Very hard. I’d rather not do that, but I will. Okay?”
She gave no sign that she heard or that she agreed at all to his terms. He kept away a little, reaching far out this time to grasp her legs. She lifted her feet suddenly and swung them at his face. He moved fast, dipped his shoulder and tilted his head in the way of a fighter trained to dodge a glove. Her feet struck the door uselessly. Almost immediately, she felt the blow he’d promised, hard to her head, and she saw fireworks. When the light show faded, she was left with a ringing in her right ear and a terrible throbbing in her jaw. Sandy had bound her ankles tightly. He was already backing the Cherokee out of the garage and was saying something about being truly sorry it had to be this way.